The Checklist

It was starting to look more and more like Nolan was getting ready to be sent home. This long portion of our journey would soon be over! But hold up, not yet. We had to complete…THE CHECKLIST. We were presented with a discharge checklist of things that we needed to learn, perform, and complete prior to Nolan being allowed to go home. This included things like learning how to draw and administer his meds via the G-Tube, sitting him in his car seat attached to a sat reader for 30-45 minutes (the equivalent of a drive home), learning the CHAMP program, setting up his feeds via G-Tube, learning infant CPR, and spending one night at the hospital completing all his care. Some of the tasks were pretty easy: the CPR lesson came in a packet from the American Heart Association that had a little practice dummy and a DVD to watch, then a nurse reviewed it with us (the good thing is we got to keep this kit so we can share it with people who would dare to watch Nolan).

Some of it we completed separately due to our schedules. The one thing that got me nervous a little was drawing meds. I was really wanting to pay good attention so I didn’t mess things up. I checked, re-checked, and checked again before administering the meds. Nowadays I’m a beast at drawing meds. Once we got comfortable doing everything else, including feeds, it was time to schedule a day to stay over at the hospital. I arranged everything with work, but honestly we weren’t looking forward to it as much. Not because Nolan was on continuous feeds and we’d need to prep his formula, or that we’d have to remember when to give his meds. It’s because his room at Progressive Care was TINY. It had one little couch along the wall that was no more than about 6 feet long. There were 2 of us. I’m over 6 feet tall by myself. So I let my wife sleep on the couch and I had the pleasure of sleeping in a rocking chair…yeah, that sucked. Big time. But aside from some chiropractic issues, the night went well and it was good to see everything on THE CHECKLIST signed off. The next step was to wait for doctors’ approval to send Nolan home…oh the suspense.